The
honor roll of Section 60Section
60 is a utilitarian, no nonsense term, bereft of any kind of grandeur,
but it is very much a part - a significant part - of this Memorial Day.

Section
60 is five acres of gently rolling land in Arlington National Cemetery
where the dead from Iraq and Afghanistan, in accord with their families'
wishes, are being buried. They join, under those dignified rows of small
marble markers, their predecessors from America's other battlefields going
back to the Revolution. It is a poignant reminder that safeguarding our
nation is a serious duty with heartbreaking but necessary consequences.

The
origins of Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, lie in that
most divisive of all American conflicts, the Civil War. Southern women
laid claim to the custom of a day set aside to decorate the graves of the
war dead. Union veterans laid claim to a specific date, May 30, but it
wasn't until after World War II that North and South were willing to observe
Memorial Day on the same date.

The
day is not marked with the pageantry and solemnity it once was, which some
blame on Congress for designating in 1971 its observance on the last Monday
in May, thereby creating a three-day weekend.

Arlington
holds the remains of only a fraction of the nation's fallen soldiers, of
course. Indeed, this week a young soldier from Greater Cincinnati, Nick
Erdy, was buried in Owensville, not far from the elementary school he'd
attended as a child not so long ago.

If
you're observing the weekend as most Americans do, as the semi-official
start of summer vacation season, pause occasionally to reflect on why Memorial
Day is called that.